


Letters To David

by veneerofcute



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Bullying, Dadmaxvid, Fluff and Angst, Harassment, Kidnapping, M/M, Neglect, Pedophilia, Running Away, Transphobia, Victim Blaming, abuse addiction, pedophile!David
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-18 15:57:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13684947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veneerofcute/pseuds/veneerofcute
Summary: After Max's parents try to take Max away from camp briefly and abuse him some more, Max runs away with David.  This is seen as kidnapping and does not go down well with the authorities or with Gwen.  David ends up in jail and Max in a home.  Years have passed and Max wants answers.





	Letters To David

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty old fic that I've only just had the guts to post. I hope you enjoy it.

Dear David,

It doesn't feel like three years since that fateful ‘holiday’, does it?  I doubt it’ll be three years to the day by the time you get to read this.  I’m not really used to this whole letter idea but I’ve given up on trying to email you.  The thing is that I want answers.  You were right: I’ve grown and started to see things differently.  I still love you like a son loves his father and I don’t think that’ll ever change.  It’s just, I lived with you for three years and there’s so much that I feel differently about.

I’m doing fine.  Not my fine but your fine.  I lived with Gwen for a while.  I don’t know if you got the email about that.  I don’t know if you got any of my emails.  Living with Gwen fell apart quickly.  So I went into the shitty system, just like we always feared I would.  I am currently writing whilst sitting at a window seat looking out over a small garden.  My roommate is playing cards on her bed and sometimes she gets me to play too.  She’s okay I guess (damn better than my old one at least).  She would be horrified if she knew I was writing to you.  Hell, most people would be horrified if they knew I was writing to you.  I’d probably think that I would be fucking crazy for writing to you if I wasn’t me.  The thing is that I do need to know the truth because as fine I am with my living situation, the past is still part of me and there were things that happened that weren’t okay.  In fact, some of the stuff that happened was awful.  I know you tried your best to be a wonderful father, a great friend and a sweet kind person.  You were always ready to put anything away just to spend time with me.  You took me across the country just so that I could a band that you hated.  You helped me with homework and even tried to make it fun.  That doesn’t change that you also had your distractions.  I never did get the feeling that you had regained your grip on reality.

I hope that if you get this you really understand that you must reply.  I simply can’t handle these memories and not having anyone else that really understands.  I feel so lonely.  Please I can’t think of anyone else that can help me.  It’s not good enough to ask someone else to reply.  David, it’s you I need now.  Not a social worker.  Not another victim.  It’s you because you were there and I know that despite everything, despite your habit of not being honest with yourself, you are the only one that can help me to understand my memories.

For a start, how did this all begin?  I remember you, Neil and Nikki taking me into the camp car, my parent’s shadow and a tug on my hair.  Nikki says that she’s pretty sure that my parents never actually got to lay a finger on me but Neil says that he remembers me screaming as I was being picked up.  I know that I did see my parents on that day.  I know that you did accidentally tell them what you ~~were~~ are and that’s why we had to go into hiding.  We’ve spoken about that enough.  I don’t remember if I heard you tell them that or not.  It certainly didn’t mean anything to me at the time, I think because you didn’t fit with everything I had been taught about people like you.  You never tried to lure me with candy or drove a white van or spoke of special hugs.  You never felt like a villain.  You always felt like David.  The idea that you could be someone who wanted to do something so terrible and someone who had provided so much endless genuine kindness were incompatible so I ignored it.  I chose to believe that you would never hurt me even if you really really wanted to.

This is where if they knew I was writing to you, I’d get into trouble.  You see, despite everything I still feel that you never did hurt me.

However that doesn’t let you off the hook.  I can see now that you David the loving, camp obsessed, better than most dads dad and David the MAP can indeed be the same person and not in a good way.  Sure, you never laid a finger on me and sure you loved me and cared for me and made me feel like a person before anything else.  I never felt like a mere ten year old around you.  I was Max first and foremost.  In fact, you forgot rather too easily that I was a child and then would suddenly remember leaving me feeling weird.  I get it, but that doesn’t change that the person you were keeping me safe from was you.  Do you have any idea how messed up it is being afraid to get violently hot and sick because your ‘dad’ might see your naked body and find it irresistible?  Sure, you avoided alcohol and gazing upon me and you always made me feel amazing but that doesn’t change… I don’t know.  I just wish that you had been normal.

I know that you often wished that too.  You were always trying crack cures.  Of course with the lack of studies into pedophilia I don’t really blame the ideas for not working.  I really respect that you were always trying and not just for me either.  You were convinced that if you found a cure, that then there would be more attraction to minors and everyone across all ages could be friends and then somehow that would lead to perfect peace everywhere.  It was sappy but if it had worked, it would have been great.  Well, it’s a nice fantasy, but it’s not fucking real.

I hope you’re doing well and that they have you talking to someone who can fix you.  Please tell me everything.  I don’t care how long winded it gets.  There’s just stuff I want to know and you’re still the best father I’ve ever had.

Love Maxwell Mathias ‘Pines’

Dear David,

Well that was an interesting reply.  I suppose that I may as well answer a few questions even if they feel off somehow.

Being transgender of course I am keeping whatever name I please so I figured sure why not with making my middle name the same as the name we used for going into hiding.  It’s a name that means a lot to me.  Sure we picked it up so that people would assume that you had said “Matt’ if they heard you call me Max by accident, but that doesn't change that it still was picked because of our love for each other.  David you gave me a choice.  You said that either we could risk everything and go into hiding together or you could fight your hardest to just get me away from my parents.  I took that choice and went with you.  Was it a crazy thing to do?  Yes.  Was I probably too young to being making that choice?  Yes.  Was it in retrospect messed up?  Yes.  That doesn’t change that it felt and was meant as an act of kindness.  What does my actual last name mean to me?  Nothing.  Not any more.

You’re right the social workers have no idea that I got hold of your address.  The address that I’m using is actually Nikki’s so that they don’t even know I’m getting a reply and hopefully soon lots of replies.  I think she wants answers too, though I’m not telling her that I still love you.  Only thing they’re likely to notice are the stolen stamps.  Doubt they’ll assume it’s me.  What would a teen want with stamps in this day and age.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of letters sooner.  It’s the perfect plan.

I don’t understand why you want me to just push out of my mind everything that happened.  It’s not like that would stop it from having happened.  You have said so much yourself.

Love Max

To Shitface

So who is it that’s pretending to be David?  It’s embarrassing that it worked once.  Your impression is crap.  David had better be getting my letters.  Even if he can’t fucking reply, I want him to know that I’m okay.  After everything that’s happened can you just give me that small amount of control in my worthless life.  I know it’s not safe and that I could get hurt but I’m hurting so much already, that it really wouldn’t be so bad.  I fucking need this or I’m going to kill myself. 

Max

Dear David.

It’s taken three years and finally I have a reply.  A real reply.  I'm keeping your reply safe in a box in my room. No one knows about it it and that's fine. I love you more than you can imagine.

So now to your actual questions. I'm doing okay in school. The Home found one that is pretty neat when it comes to gender. It's not as nice as Penburry High but at least Ered is there. It's a bit weird but thanks to her fathers, she does get me in at least one way.  At least there's one person who kind of gets me. I still don't like her very much but having one person from camp is better than nothing.

Gwen still hasn’t forgiven you.  I don’t know if I can forgive her for that as pathetic as my reaction is.  She knew that you were nice and still are nice.  I don’t understand why she can’t try to see things from your point of view.  You did whatever you had to do to keep me safe.  You broke the law for me.  You kidnapped me and took me across the border just so I wouldn’t end up starving to death from my parent’s neglect or lost in the system surrounded only by other broken kids.  True, so the second one happened anyway but you tried harder than anyone else I know.  You always tried your hardest, supporting anything I showed the remotest interest in.  One thing they did let me keep was the guitar you bought me.  I had to remove the anime stickers though.  Such a pain.  I suppose that it’s fair enough considering some of those anime’s content.  My guitar looks so plain now though.  I haven’t really played it since the stickers were removed but it’s nice having a reminder of you.  I’d like to play but I feel wrong touching it.  Anyway, I haven’t really kept in touch with Gwen after a particularly bad argument.  She said that you had changed me like it was a bad thing.  Being given attention when I do well.  That would fucking change me.  Having a parent that helps me with homework, researched my needs and bought me my first binder.  That would change me.  Having a parent that when I got in a fight with a misogynistic shitstain who ripped my bider revealing my breasts to the entire class, went up the school and asked for the boy to be expelled rather than telling me to just accept my sex like my old parents would have.  That fucking would change me.  Our relationship has never recovered after that.

Every so often someone who's heard my story, comes to The Home begging to take me in.  I honestly don’t know what I find creepier.  The people that give up after they discover that I still love you or the ones that get all excited for it.  I’ve learnt to be quiet about it.  Right now I don’t really want to be taken in.  It’s too heartbreaking being reminded that even the one person that has ever loved me, before anything else saw me for my body.  Yeah, I know about that.  I know that you lusted after me from the start.  I know that you masterbated to the seven year old version of me.  I heard your confession at the airport.  Do you have any idea how it felt to hear that?  I knew that you wanted to kiss me and do disgusting things to me, but knowing that it had been lust at first sight was quite something else.

I had to hide this letter.  It’s going to be harder to reply now.  My roommate Katlego informed them that I started crying.  I was able to bullshit my way out but they’re going to be keeping more of an eye now.  So I took the letter to school and am writing behind the bike shed.  If the letter stinks of nicotine that’s why.

It’s always got to me just how honest I could always be with you and you’d never make me feel smaller for it.  I don’t have your letter here so I can’t reply to any more of your questions.  I’m just tired and the crazy thing is that I still love you.  Sometimes I wish I could just hate you and fit the narrative that everyone pegs me into.  Wouldn’t that be best for everyone?  Sure you lusted after me but you never acted on that lust.  Okay you did, but never in a way that hurt me.  You were always trying to control yourself.  That’s a damn sight better than some supposed not pedophiles I’ve met.

I hope someday you are cured.   ~~Because even though I’m no longer affected, I remember seeing you cry.  I remember closing in for a cuddle only to be pushed away with you then looking at your hands.  I don’t want you to do that ever again.  Then maybe we could live together and Gwen could forgive and everything woul~~  I’m being an idiot.  We both know that they’d never risk you not really being cured.  Still, I know it would make you feel happy to be cured.

Any idea if our theory on how your sexuality became so messed up was right?  Is that even worth thinking about?

It was weird staying over at Stacy’s house with her parents thinking you were at therapy to discuss your issues with Jasper’s death completely unaware that you were discussing only really one of the possible issues that came from that.  It was weird playing games with them and acting like everything was normal.  That said, considering that you gave your name as Thomas I wonder how effective any of it was.  You tried though, going every friday for two years.  Are you still in touch with Kate?  Is she still helping?

What’s prison like?  Are you kept safe from the other inmates?  I hear that quite a few pedophiles have been killed in prison.  I’m guessing they would also kill a MAP.  I say as though there’s a big difference.  I want there to be.  I really do.  I want to believe that you only wanted the best for me, but like you said, pretending things are okay when they aren’t doesn’t help anything.  The thing is that despite your best efforts, things were fucked up.  I don’t blame you though maybe I should.

Okay, back home and with your letter.  Back to your questions.

I’m eating as fine as I can.  I keep a reasonable eye on my health actually.  If there’s one thing no one can’t deny it is that you did teach me to cook decently.  So thanks for that I guess.  The Home went into a huge fucking panic first time I got bored with their food and went into the kitchen to make myself a decent meal.  I like doing so anyway, especially your secret curry lasagna recipe.  I was fourteen: well and truly old e-fucking-nough to not burn myself or start a fire.  I laughed my ass off as they tried to stop me.  Guess they just want me to suffer internally instead.  I swear I haven’t seen a fresh vegetable in months.  Something about there being no one to keep an eye on me: bull fucking shit.

I have managed to get back in touch with Neil and Nikki.  It’s great.  Neil was a little freaked out to discover ‘that Max was born female’ but he got over that pretty quick.  I thought that we’re still friends was pretty clear from my last letter.  We mostly talk on skype or sometimes discord.  It’s nuts.  I’ve met other people that have been through similar things and yet it still feels like Neil and Nikki are my best friends.

I’m not currently bullying anyone.  You know most parents would ask about their kid’s grades, not ‘please don’t be nasty’.  My grades are pretty good actually.  Ever since I got rid of Patrick, school has been going swimmingly.  Yeah, I bullied him till he left crying.  After that, there’s been no need to bully anyone.  He started it anyway, calling me racist names.  No one dares annoy me at the moment.  I’ve won.

Yes.  I do miss my parents as in the people who sporned me.  It’s weird.  They mostly ignored me and you said yourself that they were violent and horrible people.  Still, I miss them.  I miss Mama’s cooking and her stories of her birth home.  I miss Papa’s habit of buying me toys and stuff out of the blue.  I don’t miss them beating me or ignoring me or wanting to drag me off from camp to parade around for work, only to then send me back again mere fucking hours later.  You were right to take me from them.  Sure the speech you made was stupid.  Still, you were right.  Even with all your faults you were still a better parent than they were.  I don’t think that’s really praise for you though.  Sometimes it makes me laugh.  “I would be a better parent than you and I’m a pedophile.”  What were you thinking?  Then you just pushed them into a ditch, took the only boat to row back from the island and grabbing me, Nikki and Neil.  I know you can be a complete idiot but I still don’t quite believe it.  I was laughing my ass of reading your take.  Seriously, serious?  That’s how it happened?  Damn, I always thought it would be less stupid if I heard it from you but if anything you come out a bigger fool.

Seriously don’t take me saying you were a better parent than my biological parents as a fucking compliment.  They really did just suck that much.

It’s kind of amazing to think that my friends just went along with your hair brained scheme.  It’s pretty awesome that it worked.  Terrifying but awesome.  So who left to head on a train home first?  I know we needed them to help us to escape.  Neil and I swapped clothes.  I remember that now.  Nikki put her bubbles in my hair and boom instant tomboy hanging out with her father.  Neil did some science and boom black hair dye.  It was itchy as all hell but we were able to hire a car undetected and drive out, abandon the car and cross into another state.  Nikki hiked along with us I think.  I honestly am not sure of that memory.  Did she or had you sent them home?  She refuses to talk about that bit.

I do forgive you for taking me to Dylan’s.  You didn’t know I am transgender.  You genuinely thought that my sex would keep me safe and it was only one night.  The best thing is that up until the trial he didn’t know either.  All the horror was almost worth it for the look on his face.

Of all the messed up stuff that happened, something so early on feels odd to ask about and yet also so you.

As for Stacy, Paul and the Gray’s, I did try to keep in contact I guess.  The Gray family were pretty horrified that we had been lying to them for so long.  They still wanted to support me.  Sometimes they send me presents.  They did speak about taking me in but I vetoed that.  I don’t know why.  Stacy was more alarmed than horrified.  She kept on giving me hugs and trying to understand me.  Paul always acted like he saw this all coming.  I don’t know if he thinks that’s cool or if he’s being genuine.  I don’t really care either.

Well, David, if this letter gets much longer, it’ll be a damn sight harder to hide so I’m leaving off here.

Love Maxwell Mathias ‘Pines’

So Shitface

Yeah, I’m pretty angry and you’re as good a punching bag as anyone else. 

The Grays still call me Mathias Pines.  It’s so weird.  They refuse to admit that you’re a thing that happened but they go with the fake name that you went with.  You’re not even a Pines.  It just was the least obviously you out of all the family names we went through.

They came to see me this weekend.

Why does everyone want to hurt me?

Max

To Cult Ignorer

Sorry I’m not ready to explain certain things.

How does someone suffer from what you suffer from and not want to kill themself all the time?  Don’t worry, I’m not like you.  I’ll never be like you never mind what people say.  I hate the idea of sexualising kids but people are so uncomfortable in talking about these issues that they don’t even want to know how to spot these issues.  No wonder they want me to act more like an real abuse victim whatever that is.

Just give up on Gwen.  She was never worth much anyway.  I really don’t care that she was the one that pressured the police to keep looking for me.  I don’t care that she was the one that rushed straight to the airport once I’d been found with that fake passport and I will never fucking feel anything but anger over the fact that she punched you for sexualizing me.  I’ll never forgive her for taking me away from you.  Acting as a character witness for me does not cancel out acting as a witness against you.

I’m not changing who I am.  I need my anger to be released and this world sucks.  Loving you doesn’t mean that I agree with everything that you say and certainly not with your feelings.  I’m going to continue getting back at kids that annoy me and there’s nothing you can that will change that so just give it up.

I suppose I could put on new anime stickers.  There’s a lot of anime that do have decent content.  Playing did make me genuinely happy.  Sure, it reminds me that you’re gone but you’re right, playing may also help me to accept that you’re gone.

So we have to be careful what we say.  That’s not too surprising.  I’m not an idiot so I should be able to handle this.  You better be careful too though.  My careful not your’s.

So it looks like our theory may be right.  It really did start from you crushing on Jasper as a child and being unable to imagine him as an adult.  Did you tell Toria that you used to think you saw his ghost on Spooky Island?  I still say that I completely believe that you did and it wasn't a dream.  It must suck to know that even a therapist has betrayed you.  Kate was always saying she would stick with you through thick and thin.  I mean we didn't even lie to her more than was needed and you would think a person like that would be used to being lied to.

Does it ever feel like I betrayed you?  I was the one that begged for the fake passport and I was the one that instantly said “Yes I can come and visit Japan.”  Sure you were the one that said, “Max, this is over” but if I hadn't wanted that damn holiday we'd still be together. I hated you when you said that in front of everyone and yet still I said, “Okay, David.”

Sometimes when I replay things in my head I instead say, “I know the holiday is over Thomas but I don't mind. At least they're a bit closer to catching that mean David we've been hearing so much about.”  Or I pretend that I’d just got through security just fine and everyone was oblivious to your issue.  It’s getting harder though to pretend to myself.  I’d never share these thoughts, but sometimes it’s nice just to dream.  It feels like there’s so much that I’ve forgotten.  The taste of your cookies, the feel of your hands as they combed through my hair, the softness of your singing anything that wasn’t the shitty campbell song.  I try to remember so many little things happened but how is completely strange to me.  I try to talk to overs and they don’t get it.  How can having you comb my hair be innocent they wonder, but it was.  The longer we knew each other the more innocent it became.

I still say that it fucking wasn’t a compliment.  You being a good parent only shows how much else everyone else sucks.  You still had depraved desires that put a whole new spin on everything we did together.

Depraved is a word I hear a lot nowadays.  “Poor Max taken in by a depraved loon” and “Truly he has grown as depraved as that villain” or “I would have spotted the abuse.  You would never have to worry about depraved behaviour again.”  Isn’t it wonderful that everyone believes themself to be a hero by doing shit all?

It’s easy you know.  Sexual abuse is over because boom they bullied one person into not shipping something so much that they decided to kill themself.  Well done.  Well fucking done.  Sure, they shipped to cope with the shit they were going through, but now they’re dead I’m sure that people like you will decide to just stop feeling attraction to me, because deciding not to be a pedophile is as you know, just that simple.  Elementary.  No need for therapy after all.  We’re all free now.  Everything is uncomplicated, effortless, wanton?

Did you even know therapy was an option before you started to discuss doujinshi online?

Sexuality is amiable? if you just ignore everything that makes you uncomfortable.  Everything is easy if you ignore the difficult bits.  Just like the idiots who think they’re blameless if they say after the fact that there were no clues.  No clues my ass. You were never subtle.  People just didn’t want you to be evil, because admitting that the person who gave them a cookie could be a monster.  Monsters are easy: obvious and clear.

So Neil wanted to stay with us for a while longer just to mess with his parents.  That does sound like him.  I’m surprised he doesn’t remember.  At least, not in so much as I’ve been able to bring up with him.  It’s likely too that he just doesn’t want to talk about it.  It must have been hard getting Nikki to agree to go home.  I remember back at camp, one time when I was trying to run away, she said that she wanted to live with the wolves and work her way up to alpha.  She was incredible.  I suppose it makes sense that Neil would have left shortly after the third day of us sleeping in a tent in the middle of nowhere.  I wonder what he would have made of the next night being at Dylan’s? 

I’m glad that you sent him back.  I know it would have been great if we could have kidnapped Nikki and Neil and lived in Penburry together but you were always right: we had to be realistic.  You can’t just grab every child with shitty parents.  You were always increasingly crappy the more distractions you had anyway.  In retrospect, even without your big issue, you were kind of neglectful.

As for my friends, we’ve never spoken about Dylan.  Not until, after your trial, when he appeared in the paper for hurting a child.  I know I should say how and it’s hypocritical after that last paragraph, but it feels more real if I say how the child was hurt.  I’m sure that you know anyway.  I had to come forward, go up to the police.  I don’t remember who I was living with but they agreed to let me go to the police and confirm that contrary that what Dylan was saying he was indeed a pedophile, that he had a collection of lolicon that he kept hidden and that he was part of a chatroom that tried to keep people from their wants.  That he always felt one step away from failure and everyone else in the chat was always creeped out by him.  I told them that you had once ‘saved’ him from himself by talking him out of hurting his sister.  That you told him to confess his attraction to her mother so that they would stay apart.  That he said that he had done so.  It’s a shame he was lying, wasn’t it?

It feels pathetic calling it a shame.  A shame is when you get the wrong pizza or when your parents say they can’t be buggered to try and take you from the only father you’ve ever loved.  Not a child getting more than hurt.  Not a friend betraying you on that level.  Mocking you with constant fucking abuse behind your back.  Do you still trust anyone in that chat?  I wonder how many are like you and really do try to control themselves and for the most part succeed.  Did you too only believe him because you really wanted to?

It’s strange to think that I’ve met multiple MAPs that have nothing to do with you.  Thing is that statistically, yeah, it’s happened.  It’s happened before I ever met you most likely.  Since MAPs are apparently really fucking common.  It’s just not usually to even your level.  Usually it’s just like one time people feel attraction then they tell themselves no and it’s just that no.  I’ve never felt attraction in that sort of way.  I think being surrounded by inappropriate things and being referred to as the ‘tsundere’ put me off anything that may have started up.  Plus seeing how miserable it made you.  From your last letter, how miserable it still makes you.  In a way you’re lucky though, sure you are attracted to young boys but you also like women.  Sure, you’re not as lucky as those that are attracted to only adults or that weirdo that was only attracted to drawings that you were always so jealous of.

I know you had more questions but I’m running out of paper and there’s no way I’m going to risk nicking more.  Since you have a limitless supply, I want to know a few things so to finish a bunch of questions.  Is writing to me the only interaction you get?  I know you've only been in solitary confinement for a month but still. Did your roommate get sick of you?  Are you eating well?  Are the wardens nice?  Did you get the plant I sent?

Love Max

To dad,

I'm scared.  I don't want Nikki to date Harry. He keeps on talking about how she's barely legal behind her back.  How do I get rid of him?

Love Mathias Pines

Dear unicorn man

Sorry I had no idea.  I can see why you always pretend that horrid people like that don’t exist.  I don’t understand though.  How can you pretend that someone who has molested a child could ever fucking well be redeemed?  For them not to even have feelings of lust but to just want to have touched someone too.  That’s irredeemable.  David, I know you believe that being nice will solve everything but dammit, you’re just being the opposite of those people who think that killing a couple of people will solve everything and you’re doing so for the same fucking reason.  You’re uncomfortable so you go with the same tactics you always use.  God, you’re pathetic.  This isn’t something we can afford to be pathetic about.  I don’t care if MAPs live or die, provided kids don’t get hurt.  If them surviving means that kids will not have to suffer their delusions, I’m fine with that.  If you have to die for kids to be safe, I suppose I have to be fine with that too.  Even if it means I don’t get my answers.  I’m sixteen.  Sure I don’t feel like an adult but you once said that that never really happens.  I’m ready to break the world’s shell though.  I’ll do whatever I have to do.

So death truths aside, let’s talk about your questions.  Yes I am safe.  No I’m not happy.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be happy.  I’m not even sure I was ever happy.  I love you more than you deserve really.  I don’t mind that you named the kalanchoe I sent you Nand.  Sure, it’ll confuse people who don’t realise that I sent it to you, but I’m just happy that you have some nature with you.  A David without nature just isn’t right.

Yes, I know we can never see each other again.  I know that you’re not leaving jail for at least another seven years.  I know that they would have loved to have put you in for longer but they could never prove that you actually did anything sexual to me.  I know that my refusal to say that you had been anything but an upstanding father didn’t really help me at all.  I know all this and it’s not going to stop me from writing.  I told you I need this.  I need answers.  Judging by how much you write, you need this too.  Don’t worry, my letter writing isn’t getting in the way of school.  The fact that this is being written on maths paper should not indicate that in any way.  It’s just easier to write than to pretend everything's okay. If anything writing has made school easier.  Now I know you’re mostly okay, I can concentrate on lessons better.  I don’t have to worry so much about what happened and more importantly I know that if I do have any questions I can always ask.

I don’t know if I should hope you get a new roommate soon.  On the one hand it feels like wishing for a child to be hurt.  On the other hand, it’s also wishing that some bastard gets caught for being unjustifiably horrible.  I just hope that things can be better somehow.  Fuck, that was sappy.  Sorry to have filled this last paragraph with sap.  I’m sure even you are feeling sick at the sight of it.  Ah well, you kind of deserve that.

Max

To David,

The disgusting thing is that despite everything I want you to have a nice roommate.  I keep on imagining the most childish things.  Like you’ll get a roommate that’s only in for I don’t know Pug Trafficking or some shit like that.  They’d be disgusted at first but once they discover you’re earth like you are they’d calm down and make Hitchhikers jokes with you.  I know it’ll never happen though.  They have to put you with someone similar or you’d end up dead.

I would like to meet again but I know it's a bad idea.  I know that once you leave jail you won't be able to fix up a normal life. I'm surprised that you've even been told that you shouldn't see me.  It feels like we could finish things if we were together.  That said maybe you are the shell.

The world is not a safe place and I am realizing that I had no idea just how dangerous things really are.  When I was tiny, really tiny, like before I even was sent to camp, I used to think danger meant things like larva and people eating plants.  The sort of thing you get in video games. It was kind of a shock to discover that I was way more likely to be hurt by people I was told to trust.  In retrospect, of course that's the way things are.  Of course people don't say “If someone takes too much interest in your genitalia and they are shit and it's fine to treat them like shit.  Hell, if they do anything that makes them a terrible authority figure it’s fine to treat them like shit.”  Of course terrible authority figures would never say that, but it’s not just them.  People need to be in denial that this world is just that horrid. I guess there is a risk that the child can't defend themself.  I hope that they at least would know they're not bad for wanting to though.  There is a risk always in not being able to defend themself. I would have never been able to stand up to Dylan.  You. Sure. But then you really wanted not to hurt me.  You liked kids as people before anything else and that made you safe.

At least you have the option of getting rid of unpleasant roommates.  I was just told that I was the problem when I complained.  Is it different when you’re talking about people that that do horrible things or is it just that you’re an adult and therefore allowed to have feelings?

I’ll write as often as I can.  I love you too much to let my letters be few and far between but you must tell me when you get a room mate.  I know I’ll get in trouble if I send you too many letters.

Mathias Max ‘Pines’

To David Brown

Max is safe sending you all these letters right?  Sometimes I worry about this obsession.  He keeps on talking about your letters and going over events trying to be sure that they really happened.  I don’t know if he’s really up for asking about certain events.  He told me that you once came home from therapy and told him that you wanted to talk.

You revealed that you had caught him watching his private collection of anime.  I thought that you would be more angry but Max describes you as calm and worried.  Just like a normal parent.  Had your attraction gone?  I know that you said that the sort of kids you liked stopped feeling sexy usually around the age that Jasper died, but what if Max was different.  We all know that he was your favourite camper.  That became increasingly clear as people went through the stuff you left behind.  You loved him and honestly, it fucking disgusts me.  To think that your love became that sick.  Sick.  Like you can even be cured.  Do you even really want that?  Anyway, you talked about anime for a while.  Max said that the anime he’d seen hadn’t even contained anything and yet you acted like it was the most fucked up stuff ever.  It was cute and the kids though not real felt unperverted. He made it sound like a normal person could watch it.  I know that I’ve watched some of the anime that you would watch with Max and never thought anything of it.  I don’t know about the private stash but we were able to find a few of the titles on amazon so it can’t be that illegal.

From Neil

Dearest David

These people pushing and pulling making me feel so small.  They’re not even aware they’re doing it but I’m the creepy one.  I’m the disgusting one.  Maybe I do deserve to be hurt.  I’m not a good victim.  I could never be a good victim.  I’m just a tragic backstory for the guy who goes too far.  I don’t have trauma: just backstory.

I love you and not in a damn cute way.  If I didn’t understand that you liked me in a wrong way, that would be fucking cute.  Trauma.  If I was a sweet child, trauma.  I’m not though.  Never was and now I never will be.  I stand up for myself. If you were here right now I would hit you.  Backstory.  I refused to play the game as a child so now I’m a bad adult.

Why can’t you make me feel good?  I just want one of your sweet hugs.  I just want you to tell me that I’m worth loving.  I can’t though.  I’ll never feel your hands wrapped around my body and feel your familial love.  I want to kiss you then push you away.  I want to be told that I’m not irresistible but lovable.

You fucking well hated the fucking word irresistible.  Always saying it with such mocking.  Always screaming ‘dump him’ whenever the girl in the supposedly romantic movie, told the guy he was irresistible.  You do fucking know that you’re not supposed to think that the git is a rapist, right?  You’re not supposed to see your own issues in her.  Did you ever find me close to irresistible?  What were your fantasies about me like?

You never told me about them.  I know a few things.  I swiped a copy of that eroge you had created about me.  It’s weird though.  I can’t seem to get with me though.  You got the amount of anger I felt as a child down perfectly but damn it why did you make that game so hard?  I also heard you moan my name in your sleep sometimes and I would try to work out why I was attractive to you.  You never revealed anything while you were awake.  Always just said, “It’s my issue, not yours.  You don’t have to worry about this.”  Maybe I could have helped you.  Since you’re answering my questions now, is it that I’m older or just that I’m clearly losing it?  In the past you would say that damn line then change the topic.  Sometimes it worked and we’d talk school or fight about my attitude towards some idiot like Miss Monika.  Usually I got huffy and you’d walk out expecting me to be happy if enough time passed.  I wasn’t.  If I did pull any information, you’d bring it up every time I asked again.  The merest grain of truth was worth a whole field of gold.

In a way, I’m glad though.  I can spot creeps a mile off.  Even the social workers are impressed, to an extent.

I wish I was the Max that everyone imagines me to be.  It would be so much easier if people didn’t think that just because I have adult interests I am now like an 18 year old.  I don’t know why I’m like this.  If you were the David everyone thinks you are I could just hate you and be done with things.

Love Max

So Fuck face

You think I’m being controlling just for wanting to help my friend.  Maybe I’m not making myself clear.  He’s a creep, a pervert and he’s taking advantage of her youth.  I have to get rid of him.  If I don’t Nikki’ll be hurt.  Do you want her hurt?  You went through hell and highwater for me so why the fuck can’t I do the same for her?

Hate Max

To Dad 

I need you so badly in my life. Not the weird couple that came to view me but you.  They were such idiots. I’m no bear in a zoo or some freak show.  I don't like people who assume things about me like that because I am fine with you I would be fine with them.  No I’m not going to have secret hugs with them.  Do I look like an idiot?  Sometimes when they act on the other extreme I like to mess with them.  You know those me dolls I can knit. I made a you doll. I sometimes like to carry it with me everywhere and hold it close looking scared.  I love it when people ask the doll’s name and the way they freak out when I say “David”.  Sometimes I stress it even more by kissing the doll and reaching into it’s pants.  Pretending the doll is male would make it too real.

If I knew what I knew as a kid what I know now I wouldn’t have ran off with you.  Sure, it turned out fine until the end, but God that was a risk.  Sure, after several months, I think your aversion to incest kicked in and we were just like any other father and son, but fuck, that was dangerous.  You didn’t even say at first that you were anti contact.  I just trusted you that much that I wanted to run away with you.  Like you were a prince on a white horse and I was a pretty little princess.  Of course you, as much as you would love to be loved by everyone and love everyone could never be a prince.  I could say that I only went with you because I already trusted you, but I don’t think that’s it.

If you had been what they had warned me about I never would have followed you.  I never would have said yes had you been a stranger.  Had you been the shadowy nameless personalitiless figure that appears in all the stop child abuse now adverts, I wouldn’t have followed.  I would have said, “No, my parents are way better than you.  You fucking creep.”  You weren’t though.  You were David and you still are David.  You will remain David never mind what you do. You were the guy who wanted nothing more than to help me to find happiness.  You told me that I deserved to be happy and had every right to be angry.  You who bought me a toy that actually matched my personality.  I knew you well and I didn’t want to believe that you could harm me.

I’m not alone in feeling this weirdly enough.  You’d think that with the vast majority of abused kids being in cases where they they know their abusers, that the personalitiless blob idea would be taboo.  You’d fucking think that it would be considered rude to portray them like that so that kids like me would know that all your Davidness didn’t stop you from being a MAP.  Nope.  It’s the other way round.  See your abuser in a character that isn’t a personalitless blob: you must be the horrible person who deserves death.

Well then, Blandy I guess you must love this.  My childish trust really went far didn’t it?

Only you’re not Blandy and dammit right now I wish you were.  I wish my parents were too.  It would be so much easier if Dad had never sung to me or played quick games with me or called me Maxy Waxy whilst tossing me in the air.  If Mum had never given me the best teddy bear for my birthday and made him growl when I had problems for the next few weeks and we talked it over.  It would be easier to remember that Mum would also hit me if I spoke to her whilst she had a headache, that she would also rip up my stuff if I left them out for longer than a day, that she could change like the tide into a monster that would overreact with fists to the smallest things.  To remember that Dad would lock me in my room for days at a time, that he would excuse mum’s actions and tell me that I should tough it out if I really was a boy, that he would excuse his own beatings with the same excuse.  That I fucking believed him like the idiot I was.  With you though, what am I supposed to be trying to remember? 

Love Max

To David

I know I don’t know your address so I can’t send this but maybe writing down my thoughts will help.

I wish that I could still see you how Max sees you.  Maybe then we could still be friends.  I hate that he ran away.  I hate that I couldn’t get living with him to work out.  I hate that he trusts you so much when you did emotionally abuse him.  Even if it was an accident, you still sexually abused him too and he’s just not willing to admit that.

He’ll often say that what you did ‘feels like’ abuse as though that stops it from being abuse.  That is when Max would talk to me at all.  I keep on trying but he’s made it clear that he wants nothing to do with me.

Why did you continue working as a counselor after you discovered your attraction?  Please tell me so I don’t have to ask that to Max.  I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hurt him again even if it would be good for him in the long term.  At least I hope and think it may help in the long term.  I’m so scared of messing up.  How couldn’t you have been scared of that?

I’ve contacted as many ex campers as I can to ask and discover if you really are as anti contact as you claim to be.  I haven’t found anything yet.  I hope I never do but the idea that I could is not right.  It would be fine as a joke but I am not all about this.

When you first revealed your perversion, I didn’t want to believe it. I just stood there trying to believe a fantasy that I had misheard you.  I almost wanted to let you go because I didn’t want to believe that ~~the same David that had made me cho~~ No the real reason is because I didn’t want to admit to myself I had been reading magazines, while the children I was supposed to be caring for were interacting with a self professed pedophile.  Max always said that you did nothing to him, but I can’t get rid of that fear.  I’ve seen what pedophila does to it’s victims, David.  It isn’t cute, funny or whatever your lust tells you it is.

If you had told me about your issue I could have helped and you had so many opportunities to do so.  I can understand that you were scared but that doesn’t change that I just can’t forgive you for putting the kids at risk.  You knew that I had a degree in psychology and yet you never said a damn thing.  Would it really have been too much to say “Gwen, gosh darn it, I find Max hot and I want you to help me to cope with that”?  I would have helped you.  We could have been great.

You know that you’ll never be cured, right?  MAPs don’t get cured.  No more than I can become straight can you stop feeling attracted to children.  I respect that you tried but I know that there is so much more that you could have done.  You let yourself be selfish simply because you felt that someone fucking had to treat the children right.  There are people in this world though that aren’t into kids in that way.  You could have done things in the background for them.  You can be amazing for children without being anywhere near them.  Wouldn’t that have been great?  I never could have cured you but I could have helped you.

I’m sorry but I’ll never forgive you even if forgiving you would mean that I could better understand and help Max.

From Gwen

Ps. I don’t feel any less angry.  No wonder Max was always trying your email.  I almost tried to stop him but I fear that keeping him from you was pointless.  You really ruined everything.

To David

I hope you’re still seeing a lot of wolves.

From Nikki

Dear David 

So Max made me a copy of that game you had made so that I could crack it, complete the many incomplete bits and find out what it was that you want to do with him.  On the one had I shouldn’t be shocked.  After all, you’re David.  I should have known that your interests are very David.  Still, what the fuck is wrong with you?

I always knew Camp Campbell was an abusive summer camp but yikes.

From Neil

Ps. Yes Max will be hearing about this.

To David

I want to take back what I said about you getting my personality down fine but to be honest I’m more disturbed by how accurate it was.

Disturbed in general too.  I should be happy though.  I finally have answers.

With all my disgust Max

To Davey

Your new roommate sounds pretty cool.  I won’t pretend I approve of what she did and I’m pretty disgusted that she is being put with you however at least the disgust comes from nothing to do with personal child abuse at least.

I wonder how her victims feel about her.  Sure she never produced anything but by spreading it she still hurt them.  I have met a lot of children that I can relate to but I don’t think I’ve met anyone that’s a victim of that particular crime.  Like I don’t mind you having made for you a drawn game about me especially since it was only for your consumption even if I still can’t believe the content.  But what she spread was so different.  It wasn’t designed to stave off feelings.  It was designed to encourage others in their fantasies and therefore to act on them.  Even if it wasn't for it's plot the way that it used real children and no drawings is just disgusting. Maybe some of her victims feel similar to me though.  After all, it’s hard looking at how horrible the world is and not wanting to pretend that everything is fine.  I guess I finally understand you. It fucking sucks.

I know you want to hear about what happened with me and the Grays but I’m just not ready to talk about that, sorry.  On that note, yes I was disturbed when you said that Dad had picked up one of the me decoys I had left lying around by the head thinking it was me then tossed it aside so roughly.  I just didn’t comment because that’s just Dad being Dad.  Didn’t you ever think it was odd that I disliked having my hoodie and hair touched so much?  I hate being touched in general but still, I’ve always been an abused child, Davey.  These things really shouldn’t be shocking you.

Also on that note, mind telling me how Jasper died?

Guess I need to admit that you’ll never be cured too.  I still really want that for you.  Chemical castration doesn’t really sound needed but considering how upset your attraction makes you I think that I have to agree with you.  Go for it.  I could write a letter to Bianca if that would make things easier.  You’d think that you having brought it up would encourage things but what would I know.  I’m so glad that something close to a cure is real. At least this will help with the misery you’re putting yourself through.

When did you know that you were into children?  Did you deny it at first?  I’ve always imagined that you did.  In my mind, you’d tell yourself that you would lust over me then tell yourself that you had really been lusting over some tree or something about me that had nothing to do with my age.  It would be nice to have that confirmed but I’d rather you were honest.  If it turns out that you had always known, I can deal with that when it comes.

I personally, I don’t know.  I remember liking boobs as a child but now I don’t feel really into anyone.  Did you mess me up there?  It’s not like I’m repulsed either though.  I don’t get myself.  Gwen said that I don’t have to explore myself until I’m ready.

Remember when we first set foot in our new home.  It was bare and I couldn’t believe that me and my nature loving new dad were really in a property of our own.  A tiny little house with one bed room and not even one piece of furniture.  We didn’t even have an oven or a toaster.  We camped out on the floor the first night.  The next day we took our last $50 and went shopping.  You got a job so easily it was like you had a superpower.  Well that was how it felt at the time but now I’m wondering if you knew Lisa before we ran off together?  You got me into a school where they asked no questions and I felt alive.  The first thing we bought was a bed for me so that you wouldn’t have to say that I was uncared for.

I know you know all of this, but it’s so nice knowing that you won’t doubt me for writing about the nice times.  I remember the final friend of your’s we stayed at before going to Penburry and am wondering if you’re still in touch.  The artist who just wanted people to be happy and no one to be hurt.  She was the one who suggested letting me get any modifications I suggested.  I instantly asked for piercings and she did it.  I still have the eyebrow one in.  I lied and claimed that it’s stuck in there.  In reality I loved hanging around her.  She was such a weirdo.  She died my hair the same as my favourite anime character and gave me a tragic backstory so I would have an excuse when I went to school.  She punched you around the face, breaking your nose.  It was terrifying then I realised that it would permanently be out of shape.  Just so you could stay with me.  That’s more scary now but I remember thinking it as the sweetest thing.  We discussed contacts but you vetoed the idea and instead let her use henna on your hair.  It was decent idea going for a hippy dye.  Obviously red but in such a way that people will assume that you’re any colour naturally other than red.  Genius.  She spoke of how I only really needed to be disguised for a year because I was a child and would change anyway.  Crazy thing was that she was right.  Within a year, I could hardly recognise myself.  If the passport hadn’t revealed itself as fake, I would never have been caught.  Puberty hit me hard and I grew up fast.  You had so many friends.  How many did you let help you?

You agreed to learn programing even though you hated computers and to find a small town nearby to live in.  We lived with her for a week.  Shame she wasn’t into guys.  I was shipping you two like crazy.  You earned enough to take us far away and to buy a computer so that you could email her work and then we found a small house that was wanting to be sold very quick and we went and lived there. 

We chose Penburry because it was tiny and somewhere where the police were unlikely to look for us.  We chose the house because the last two occupants had been murdered, making it cheep for you and cool for me.  It was fun at school being known as the child from the murder house.  I hadn’t thought I would be popular but Stacy took an instant liking to anyone that wasn’t scared of death.  I figured she would do and she did indeed do so we became friends.  The next day, I got into a fight with Paul.  Somehow that lead to us becoming friends.  Any idea how that happened?  Every month you would take a 50 mile trip into the city where you would work with Lisa.  That was where the other family we became friends with came in right?  You needed someone to look after me whilst you suggested messed up ideas to Lisa.  I know the me game was dead but I seriously doubt your other ideas were pure either.

I hated Penburry but people were kind to us.  I got a after school job till we could afford basic furniture.  The story that we told was that I had an abusive mother and you needed somewhere to stay low from her was eaten up like crazy.  After all, who could resist someone that had made a mistake in marriage.  Who could resist you and your sweet smile, obliviousness to so many sexual matters, and determination to help everyone even when you were useless.  The storekeeper gave us a bookcase they weren’t using anymore.  Our neighbours gave us a toaster and within a week we had a small amount of living space.  Once Lisa’s game was finished you went around paying everyone for their kindness and you had made friends so easily that many said that you had already returned favours.  Bet they feel differently now.  I hated the hills and the old fashioned buildings and the way everyone knew everything about everyone.  I miss Penburry now, even though I could never go back.  I did try once.  It was weird.  People kept on saying, “Gotta watch out for the quiet ones”, “Never would have thought Tommy would hurt anyone.”  Somehow the streets felt less familiar and the stupid decoration in the town center more stupid.  I thought I’d feel nostalgia but let’s face it, Penburry was never what I was missing.  The Penburry where we lived in a small bungalow with a leaky roof and no carpets is gone.  I don’t even know if our house is there.  Some things were the same: the antique shop still always has different furs, old military stuff and Betty Boop figures in stock.  Different ones too.  Yet we still have no idea who keeps buying them.  The Ice Cream Place is still there and the curry place still sucks.

You were always determined to make the best of things.  I’d get nightmares in the night and wake you up with my crying but you didn’t complain.  You just made sure that Mr Honey Nuts stayed by my side and gave me any hugs I asked for.  I’d complain about your cooking but you showed me endless patience.  No, it just felt endless.  I’d see you taking off and trying to sleep in the kitchen.  The tiles on the floor were cold but you did so just so you wouldn’t have to be round me.  The worst thing is that I know why you didn’t want to be around me and it wasn’t because I was a problem child.  If it had been for the same reasons as why Mum and Dad hated me I would have been able to deal with it.  What was I supposed to do?  Would the police have believed me after all the lies I’d told for you?  I knew all about running away now but I had nowhere to run to.  I was just a child.  You tried to hide the issue from me but I was able to spot your lies a mile off.  In a way, you could say that I traumatised myself by knowing too much.  You never would though.  You’re too nice for your own good.  You still only ask to make me as okay as I can be.  I was messed up before we met though.  It doesn’t matter if you work your hardest and it doesn’t matter if someone fucking has to do everyone for me.  I’m just that fucked up.  I spent the first few years of my life with parents that made you look good.  I spent three summers at camp and hated the first two summers.  The third one was barely that much better.  You did stop trying, unlike you said you would never do.  You outright called me Max in front of everyone.

Why did you give up?  Was I too much to handle?  I know that it was stupid wanting to go on a holiday that wasn’t camping.  I hadn’t meant to lose you.  I just took that stupid risk.  I know you said it wasn’t my fault and you forgive me but that doesn’t change that I blame myself.  I hate you even more though.  Everytime I think about it.  Why did you come to the airport and call me Max?  We could have bull shitted our way out.  You gave up and it hurt me more than any sexual thing you could have done.

Love Max

To David

Wanna fuck?

Love Max

To David

I thought you said that our stuff was being read before you got it.  God, no.  I don’t wanna fuck you.  Anyway answer my other letter.

Max

David

You know that your roommate’s victims are horrified by it all.  That one of them has tried so hard to get the porn of the net and your fucking roommate decided that no it needed to be up.  You’ve given up on getting a better roommate too.  I hope you keep these letters secret from her.  I don’t want her knowing about Nikki or my game.  I’d give you a hug if you were here.  I wish we could talk in person.  As nice as it would be if you could help her with her accidiction, it sounds to me like she isn’t even aware that what she did was wrong.  Good luck but don’t get your hopes up.  Personally I’d just kill her.  Maybe once you get out of jail you’ll know what you could do with your life.  Help others to not hurt kids.  An inch of prevention is worth a yard of cure and all that shit.  You have rubbed off on me if I really believe that people can be redeemed so thanks for that I guess. 

I’d forgotten about how much trouble I got into for my hair.  There wasn’t much of a dress code because there were too few pupils for the school to feel that they needed to make up for their lack of discipline skills with one.  The other kids were angry though.  Dyed hair and piercings made me an edgelord apparently.  I’m glad you let me go with technicolor hair.  Having a broken nose would have ruined my looks forever.  It’s back to my natural colour now.  I should take a selfie and print it out to send to you.  I’m sure that you want to know how Nikki and Neil look too.  Would that be allowed?  I’d be wearing plenty of clothes so surely it would be fine.  Would they notice?  Can I find out how you look too?  Anyway, so you actually remember what I got into a fight about on my first day and it wasn’t with Paul like I thought.  So when did he appear?

Do you remember the ice cream we’d get at Reiji’s?  You’d nearly always order mint and fruit sundays whilst I went with chocolate and nuts sundays.  Sometimes we’d shock them and I’d order a large coffee completely black whilst you went with a hot chocolate.  I’d be off the walls hyper for the next hour but it was so worth it.  You used to take friends round.  Have they tried to stay in touch at all?  You had so many friends or did they really just like the you that you projected round?  I liked getting ice cream with you and I liked it even more once you earned enough money that you started to give me some to go and take friends round.  Reiji never gave me coffee without you around.  He said that he wasn’t willing to deal with a hyper kid (though it seemed like he was willing to deal with other kids that got hyper of stuff) and gave me a dollar off any ice cream I wanted to make up for it.  Paul tried ordering a coffee to try and also get the same deal but I ended up drinking it for him.  It was disgusting.  He had not only put milk in but sugar.  Who does that?  It was more like ice cream than coffee.

There wasn’t a decent pizza place so ice cream became our thing.  Sure there was the city, whatever that was called.  Why didn’t you mention the name one of in your letters?  You must remember it.  You went more often than I did.  I’m glad that you have good memories too.  I didn’t think that you would have such good memories of watching anime with me.  It was special though.  Every evening getting one episode was pathetic but the talks afterwards were cool.  You always cared about every show that we watched and every episode meant so much more when you were there asking me how I felt and not just to see if I understood the morals.  You always came up with really dumb theories and it was fun watching you get things completely wrong.  It was amazing.  It didn’t matter what we were watching: you always expected something that the genre just wouldn’t do.  Sometimes I would rather your ideas had happened.  Especially with that cute singer show from the 80s.  I really wanted the fans to get it like you said they would.  I think a lot of the time you just didn’t get that anime having continuity means that it’s morality is shown differently: that just because one episode ends with morality that looks bad it doesn’t mean that the bad guy will win.  It made it even better when the good guys won and you’d be so happy that the world was okay after all.  Do you still watch anime?  If so do you still watch the kind that we’d like to watch together or are you still mostly into your secret sash?

I don’t know if I can forgive you for giving up.  I know it’s weird.  I know that I love you and hate you at the same time.  I can’t choose my feelings.  I would like to choose, but the feelings remain confusing and I don’t even know what I would choose if I could choose.  There are certainly things that I would like to choose but as a whole, there’s just too much to consider.  So my mind instead refuses to make one, even though I know that not making a choice is still a choice and likely the wrong one.  Every refusal is a point for both of choices because whether I like it or not people will see my non choice as a choice for what they want to see it.  I am whether I like it or not part of society and therefore I am a poster child for abuse in many people’s minds.  I am the one that people ask what it’s like and so I answer and my answers are answers that I don’t mean anything.  So even with your explanation, I don’t know how I feel or if I will feel something concrete.

I thought that writing you letters would help but instead I have even more questions.  I don’t know what would answer things in a way that would feel complete.  It has occurred to me that if we slept together that would complete things.  That said, I am happy that I’m getting your letters.  Maybe I don’t need complete feelings.  LIke you have said, the reality is that there’s no one way to be a victim.  My victimhood is still there nevermind what I do and even if I become toxic, abusive or somehow worse I will still be a victim.  My parents ensured that to be true.  So I have that answer.  So how far can I or should I use this knowledge.  Basically now what?

Do I feel guilt over you?  I guess.  I hadn’t thought of it that way, but then I haven’t wanted to feel that way.  I’d rather think that I didn’t.  It’s embarrassing.  You know me better than myself sometimes.  At least it’s the same the other way round so I can embarrass you too.

There’s a lot of information that I’ve asked for and you’ve given me that I don’t know what to do with.  So you say that you had always liked children from around 7 to 11, but that it wasn’t until your second summer working at Camp Campbell that you admitted it to yourself.  That it was Gwen who accidently let you know that there are others that don’t want to hurt children by complaining about a dumbass ship war she had seen.  That you always felt terrible after thinking about me sexually.  That Gwen never had any idea that there was anything wrong with you until we ran away.  That you would laugh at ‘kill all pedos’ jokes because you just assumed that people weren’t including you.  That you love me as much as I love you and that now your love is completely safe.  What am I supposed to do with all of this? 

I have to send this off now or I’ll get into trouble.  I miss you so much and I doubt I’ll ever meet anyone like you.

Love Max.

Ps. Tell Lisa she’s nuts from me, thanks.

To David Brown

Would you please stop letting Maxine Marar send you letters?  We are concerned that her behavior is changing due to contact with you.

At Cherry Wood High we pride ourselves on the behavior of our pupils.  As such with her rebellious nature Maxine was already a problem child.  Whilst we have done our best to correct her bullying, lazy, disruptive ways, it is also true that she is a young lady with huge potential.  She struggles so much as it is with applying herself that any distraction is a bad one.

Yours sincerely

Thomas Smith

Headmaster at Cherrywood High

To Davey

I am completely fine with you “leaking” that letter to the press. Giving you my dead name, school and surname indeed. How disgusting.

Love

Max

To David Brown

If you really love Max, give him up.

From Mr and Mr Miller

To David

Damn, I had forgotten how annoying your constant cheerful mood could be.  I keep thinking on thinking I have reached the end but nope.  Three years is a long time.

Here's hoping the picture I took is being sent through.  I hope you like it.  I wanted to take a selfie with Nikki and Neil but I think they find my fascination with you creepy.  As though it isn’t natural to want to understand what happened.  I feel so much better now that you have confirmed that so much of what happened happened and that you're safe.  Sure I'm not actually any safer but being able to cope with my own mind is a wonderful thing.  I know neither of us will really truly recover but slowly, we're getting better.

I know that others have reached out to their ~~att~~ ~~abu~~ reason they're messed up and not been as successful.  As much as what you have done should be the bare minimum, I can't help but feel grateful.  Crazy I know.

Thank you.

Anyway on that note last night I had a dream and though I have no memories that suggest it's real I can't help but wondering. Back when we were living together, I came into your room and you were talking to someone on the phone. You can't have known I entered the room for you were talking about me. You were saying that you were really looking forward to me reaching sixteen so we could legally make love.  You were sounding so naive and sweet too.

Did anything like that ever happen?

So it was me that turned your head.  I was just that sexy.  In a way, I’m weirdly proud.  Even though you said, that, ‘seeing you made me aware of just how I’d always seen children as more than cute’.  It’s a fun thing to boast about though.  Sadly, not many people get it.  At least I have two though.  I’m pretty lucky.

I've been practicing those chords you sent me. They're pretty neat though I think it's annoying people that they can't recognise the song.  When you’re not trying to create something suitable for camping you’re a go ~~dece~~ reasonable songwriter.  Maybe I should try writing something.  Maybe a song about you but I’ll call you a girl’s name and see how many people instantly assume it’s romantic based on that alone.  That sound fun?

Something in your last letter confused me.  Why has your sentence been extended?

School still sucks but I’ve been coping better.  I don’t even care too much that Candice is acting like a complete bitch.  You’d be proud to hear that she doesn’t even know she’s a bitch… well, I haven’t told anyone anyway.  I doubt she’ll find out about this letter.  Are you less proud because I’m telling you.  Screw it.  Be proud of me anyway.

Love Max

Dear David

I’m sorry.  I don’t know what to say.  I never meant to extend your sentence.  I don’t know how I feel about the fact that I did.  No I feel terrible that it happened.  I just don’t like how it happened.  Someone had to take care of me.  You did your best and that game did help to stop your urges from being real.  It was too far to base the character ~~of me~~ for the character to be me.  You know it.  I know it.  Pretending that “Matthew” was not me at this stage isn’t going to shorten your sentence, as much as I want that to happen.  I’m not going to get in trouble for owning a copy of this game right?  I don’t think I should.  It’s helped me to understand a lot of what happened.  Plus I thought the pudding route was pretty funny.  Did the game’s creator know that Matthew was me?  Will they get in trouble?  Also should we?  I’m not getting off on the game.  It would be pretty arrogant for a start.  Mostly Neil and I make jokes and try to think up new routes and sometimes add our own jokes.  Could we get in trouble for creating a route?  We had one planned out that was going to beat the pudding route for humour.  The sexual nature was mostly for humour in our route.

I don’t know if you would like our route idea.  We were going to call it the Sexy Murder route and you would have to kill everyone else at camp to earn my love.  Only there would be a billion ways of messing up and all would result in all sorts of weird gags, a quarter of which included Daniel disguising himself as you.  We were going to call him Timothy for shits and giggles too.  Most shocking I think for you is that we would included swearing that doesn’t disappear in the good ending.  :p  Not only that but words worse than damn.

On the other hand, I remember some of the files we found in the game.  Unused with the words ‘David said no’ on things that gave suggestions of BDSM and ‘not quite’ on I think cgl stuff.  What is cgl anyway?  We’re trying to figure it out.  Is it like super vanilla?  Some of it was uncomfortable even if I’m guessing that the no came from you just not being into that shit.  I can see how creativity could have so easily had the opposite effect here.  And fuck if this game were to be considered fine what else would be.  I don’t know. I’m only sixteen. I’m not ready to make up my mind on this shit.  Good thing I don’t have to, in this state at least.

Yes, I do remember the Velma/Brain theory.  That was a laugh.  I don’t agree with it anymore but I can see your point.  I wonder what a normal person would think of it.  Probably not much.  Too many other reasons have been given.  It’s still a nice thought.  I don’t mind that we were wrong.  Just like your theories on what would happen next in Evangelion, at least it was fun talking about them.

I still can’t believe I got you to watch that.  That said, I’m glad I did.  It was fun watching stuff with you.

It’s been six years to the date since I last saw my parents as I’m writing this.  Most of the time I don’t mind.  Today I realised something though.  I can’t remember a word of Hindi.  I suppose you could say I’m truly an american now.  Fucking sucks but I suppose we already knew that I was distanced more and more from a place I never really thought of as home anyway after what happened with Gemma.

Love Max

Dear David

Of course you would fucking well say that nothing like that happened.  Don’t get me wrong.  I believe you.  I fucking well believe you but I’m still scared.   ~~I didn’t want~~  You not hurting me or choosing to is fine.  I can fucking well deal with the fact that you tried your level fucking best to be a decent person.  I’m not a little shit.  I can deal with you being a good person and a attracted to me in all the wrong ways.

Okay, I’ll send you a copy of our new take on the game when you get out of jail.  Taking the game in a weird direction rather than a sexual one is our plan.  It lets us take control of what happened and honestly I’m loving every second of it.  I wouldn’t want the normal person playing trying to date ‘Matthew’ though.  I changed my mind on that one like you said.  I started to realise that no, I didn’t like the idea of people seeing people like me as sexual.  Just because I don’t relate to not wanting to be seen as sexual, I still want control over my sexual side.  It’s crazy to think that in the state where we lived together, I’d be old enough to be able to consent to you.  Or to someone that would look to such a game for inspiration.

It’s creepy isn’t it?  Isn’t it creepy?

I don’t know if I can describe what it’s like being an outsider in my own culture.  There’s still a lot of stuff that I do know and there’s also that I’ve never gone back to India.  I don’t even know if I want to.  I feel like I ought to but I don’t.  Maybe it’ll change.  I’ve clearly still got a lot of growing up to do.  On the other hand I kind of don’t mind. I am still Max after all never mind where I am from.  I still given a choice would rather go to Japan.  When you get out of jail we’re going together. Okay?

Love Max

To Dad,

Fucking pieces of shits online are getting me down.    Don’t worry.  This isn’t about shipping.  I realised long ago that anything to do with that was going to end badly.  At least I don’t think shipping is involved.  People online are pathetic enough that they will hide behind serious issues that really shouldn’t be treated to pathetically just to make their own ships look better.  Still, this was supposed to be a character study fic not a shipping fic so I thought I’d be fine.  Only I wasn’t.  I was in fact pissed off at what I saw.

It fucking sucks that there’s not much to do round here but go online.  Fuck, I can’t believe that I’ve let myself get caught up enough that I’m actually trying to get advice.

The character I like is an abuse victim and unlike most personalityless moe blobs or outright villains, she’s cool and cute and raw.  We’re not that unalike.  It’s a kids show so the most she can say is that people are pathetic.  So I was reading this fic.  I wouldn’t have minded if they had just called her a bitch.  Making female characters into bitches is par the course for fanfiction.  Even feminists are dulled to that one.  This went to the other side of the virgin whore complex and made her into this goodie two shoes who never would hurt a fucking fly.  So I became pissed off and wrote a dumbass review telling her that she was telling abuse victims that if they weren’t perfect perfections they deserved to be abused.   That’s what people are saying when they say that abuse is bad because it only happens to the most moe of the moe.  They don’t realise they are but they are.

So they got all prissy telling me that I’m some dumb guy and that if I was a girl I would understand.  I don’t understand.  They’re the one that offended me and I’m the one that’s actually an abuse victim.  Of course, people can never let things be.  One of their friends found out that I ship incest and apparently that means that all my opinions must be a shipping war and not at all that I don’t want victims to be told that they deserve to be abused just because they know that they deserve better and don’t need a hero to tell them that every two seconds.  I’m clearly shipping to cope unlike this creep.

So now just from writing one stupid review that didn’t even contain things like how bullshit it is to portray the abuser as a stranger to the character when that only covers like 10% of childhood abuse cases.  Maybe I should have but I figured that it wasn’t worth the effort leaving a review longer than a few sentences.  After all my point was that they ruined my favourite character and then had the nerve to call themselves progressive in doing it.  They had the nerve to point out how they had made various character’s bi and trans, just to make themselves look better.  Like that works on anyone over 14.  Such bullshit.  Oh I went off topic.  Stupid hand written letter and pen writing.  Anyway from one review I now have tons of people in my inbox telling me that I’m a sexist cow for not going along with their complex.  I’m not apologising because I wasn’t the one who offended.

How do I get rid of all these idiots.  I’m fed up of the block button.

Love Max

To Dad,

Yeah I ship incest.  I don’t know why either.  It just makes me feel better. 

I guess you’re right.  It can be nice to think that you’re a nice person but surely holding yourself to a standard of ignorance is only going to make yourself crumble.  Maybe these people should cope in private if they’re going to post such triggering stuff.  No one is going to become incestous just because I reblogged an image of two siblings kissing.  In their case though actual damage is super likely.  I’ve had enough people telling me that I deserve what I got because of this and that to know that it’s damaging.   They’re the ones with the unhealthy coping mechanism.  Really they should just stop.  Seriously, have you ever heard of black and white thinking being healthy in anyone over the age of 10?

Love Max

To David,

Really?  I sound just like an anti and am letting my triggers get in the way of reason?  You think that person might have been in the 10% even?  You sound like my dad and I don’t want you to sound like him.

I don’t know if I agree.  Damn, when did you get so good at talking to me.  I remember how you were when we first met.  I know that a lot of it’s hazy but I remember the feeling.  I hated you so much.  You never listened and always were making an idiot of yourself.  You had no idea how to talk to children.  You had to learn.  It was like you were scared of… Oh fuck.  You were fucking scared of us, weren’t you.  But you learnt.  You grew.  You stopped letting your issue get in the way and let us grow.  I know that you really did love us and wanted each of us to be happy, not because you were paid to or because the camp was special but because by the end of summer you had found something loveable in each of us that had nothing to do with your messed up side.

When did I get nostalgic for hating you?  Remember how I tried to kill you?  Wasn’t it awesome that that never once worked?  Also that time you fell into the lake and almost drowned and Gwen had to save you.  How fucked up is is that she wouldn’t do that again?  Fuck, remember Chucky and how you messed up so badly just because you wanted some dumbass award?  That messed me up.  Fuck, that really messed me up.  I don’t know why that messed me up and not all the other shit.  You know what I’m talking about.  Does this mean that I’ll end up like you?  I fucking well hope not.  I don’t want to be crying my eyes out morning after morning.

You still send him flowers sometimes I bet.

Maybe I should.

How do I even ask people to tag for purity complexes when they don’t even know they have them?  Ask them to tag all check-list morality?  Is that fair and right?

Should we get back to talking about Tsun Tsun Cub?  I felt a lot better when we were making jokes together and stuff.  Why couldn’t our relationship have just been like that?  We could still have a decent relationship someday.  Sure, Matthew hates me because I can never complete the music route without taking away Professor Honey Nuts, but I don’t see why you still would.  (My teddy bear appreciates his qualifications by the way.  He would like a university hat to go with them though and is disappointed that he didn’t get one.)

The game designer made my ‘Professor Honey Nuts has been taken away’ expression way too cute.  I have to take away the bear or Neil laughs at me and the game is too disturbing to play on my own.  Nikki is fun to play the game with too. She is fucking great at finding easter eggs.  It’s a shame this game is borderline illegal or we could really make a mint of it.  Not that I’d want people to play it.  My feelings are weird and I don’t get them and provided I don’t do anything rash, that’s fine.  It’s fine to take a while to make up my mind.  Someday I’ll know how I feel about all sorts of thing.  Even you.

Love Max.

To Dad,

I’ve decided to stop interacting with fandom so much.  I don’t see the point.  I’ll just have to not review things or hope that people try to create better content.

There is some good news.  Nikki broke up with her idiot boyfriend.  I did what you said and was there for her without asking anything in return and our friendship is better for it.  I doubt she’ll grab another idiot on the rebound.  So thanks for the advice I guess.

I wish I could give you some good advice in return but the bigness of everything just is so much with so many little details.  I don’t know where to begin.

I’ve been holding this question off, but we’ve spoken about Tsun Tsun Cub enough for me to feel comfortable asking and it’s not like you’ve ever denied that Matthew is me.  There’s a bit in the Adventure Camp route, where Not Nikki and I run off together and we fall in the lake and naively start stripping so our clothes can dry, only to lose our stuff to some wild animals.  You find us naked and Not Nikki is crying and the player character has to cheer her up and you lead me you jacket thing and Nikki that old camp shirt you wear around your neck.  It only makes us look even more sexual.  I know all these fantasies were never real but was this based on anything that really happened?

Love Max

To David,

Three days ago, I realised something.  Gwen was right.  Not about you being unforgivable.  Your actions even if they were for a wrong reason did give me three years of happiness.  Still, your reasons weren’t good.  You weren’t just trying to be kind, like I wanted to believe.  You wanted me around so that you could love me but also so I would be there accidently making sexual comments.  That wasn’t good.  I wonder what else I will realise from talking to you.

Nikki has started dating a new person and I’m afraid that it’s another shithead.  I’m going to hold on tight this time and find out if she is bad.  Neil says that I’m paranoid but he doesn’t know how to spot a creep like I do.

It’s been hard getting on with Nikki and Neil of late.  I don’t blame them.  The last six years have been hard on everyone.  They went almost three years without a word from me and in that time, they heard so many horror stories about what you could be like.  How could they not be afraid?  I admire the way that they have listened to me too, but I can tell that they’re still full of fear.  I’ve tried admiring their bravery but really I resent that they don’t trust me.

From Max

To David

I have a new social worker.  She found your letters to me and we had to speak at length about them.  I’m allowed to keep them but she’s helping me to write you this letter.  I imagine this’ll be the last.  She says that there’s nothing wrong with wanting closure but she’s concerned that I’m not really getting that.  Is that what you would say?  She’s also concerned about you knowing where I am.  I told her that you could be trusted but it’s not too shocking that she disagreed.  That said, she agreed simply being attracted to me was no evil.  That people can’t control their own thoughts but you can choose where to grow.  She says that it would be great if you could but that I need time away from you and in a way, she’s right.  I don’t know if I’ll get in contact again but if and when I do, I imagine I’ll be a different person.

There is just one thing that after all this I want to know.  Was what you did to me abuse?

Maxwell Marar


End file.
